My aim is to offer insights into some of the more subtle principles underpinning prints. The commentary is based on thirty-eight years of teaching and the prints and other collectables that I am focusing on are those which I have acquired over the years.
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Friday, 28 April 2017

“The Lady of
Richmond”, 1795, after Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/8–1543), from the famous
series, “Persons of the Court of Henry VII”, published by John Chamberlaine (1745–1812)
and printed by William Bulmer (1757–1830).

Original colour
(a la poupée—a printing technique
using small wads of fabric [a la poupée means "with a doll"] to add
colour to the printing plate before it is rolled through the press) stipple etching
on light pink wove paper (the same colour that Holbein had used for his
original drawing), trimmed along the platemark.

Condition: extraordinarily
delicate and beautifully printed impression trimmed along the platemark. The sheet is in near faultless condition but I can see the lightest of
abrasions (almost invisible) above the left breast.

I am selling
this superb example of colour stipple etching for the total cost of AU$296
(currently US$221.38/EUR202.38/GBP171.21 at the time of posting this listing)
including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are
interested in purchasing this remarkably fine print, please contact me
(oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make
the payment easy.

I suppose every
family has a monster in its closet. Even the sweet face of young Mary shown
here, who is known formally as The Lady of Richmond—the only daughter of Thomas
Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, by his second Duchess, Elizabeth, daughter of
Edward Stafford Duke of Buckingham—is only a thin disguise for a dreadful
monster who brought a raft of evidence against her brother, Henry Earl of
Surrey, in his iniquitous trial in 1546.

For those with
a taste for history, Mary was married at a very early age to Henry Fitzroy,
Duke of Richmond, who was a natural son to King Henry VIII, by the wife of Lord
Talboys. I understand that her title, “The Lady”, was meant to denote her
husband’s indirect relation to royalty. Mary’s husband, Henry Fitzroy, was a
close friend of Mary’s brother. Sadly, Henry died when Mary was barely
seventeen and only ten years before Mary brought a damning body of evidence
against her brother in his trial. There must have been extraordinary
circumstances driving Mary to denounce her brother in court.

(Note: the
above discussion is based on published documentation from 1795 accompanying
this print and there may be factual inaccuracies.)